I’m sure you’ve heard about Bitcoin(BTC) and its outstanding growth rate over the past few years. People everywhere are talking about it. Some think that it is the answer to our world economic problems, while others believe it is a bubble which is about to burst. All the talk about Bitcoin and it’s remarkable growth is making you feel eager to purchase this cryptocurrency. However, you’re faced with a dilemma...
You don’t know enough about this new technology to risk losing your hard earned money.
You don’t know who to trust when it comes down to exchanging your hard earned money for a digital currency.
You’re not sure how investing in Bitcoin could benefit you.
You are unsure about the risks involved when it comes to investing in Bitcoin and Alt coins.
I am going to shed some light on this topic in order for you to get a better understanding of cryptocurrencies before deciding to invest your hard earned money in this new technology.
Why should you listen to me?
I bought my first Bitcoin a few years ago, at a coffee shop in Thailand from a Bitcoin miner who needed the cash. I didn’t know much about Bitcoin at the time, except that it was being used as a low cost, secure method of purchasing illegal substances online. My desire to help this stranger out, as well as my interest in Bitcoin lead me to take the step. However, this was not the only reason I got interested in the currency initially. The main reason was because I could see that there was at last, a solution for instant, low cost, international peer to peer transactions to occur. No Bank charges, fast transactions, and complete privacy was at our fingertips.
At the time of writing this article, I have since then watched my investment grow. It has multiplied about forty times the original value of what I invested.
I am passionate about blockchain technology and am excited to see what lies ahead.
Enjoy the article as I take you through some basic knowledge of Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and colored coins. I also introduce LYKKE to you, the future of financial asset trading.
So, what’s the hype?
Bitcoin features are what make using the Blockchain technology attractive. It offers privacy and instant international transactions with almost zero fees.
I recently learned about Solarcoin (SLR), a new technology that allows us to earn money from the energy which our solar panels are producing each and every day.
Nowadays it is possible to trade goods and services using digital currencies also known as Cryptocurrencies. The most popular one being Bitcoin. Cryptocurrencies work the same way as our traditional currencies, the main difference being that the Cryptocurrency is stored in a digital wallet on your mobile device instead of a physical paper wallet. Currency is simply a means to facilitate the exchange of value. Cryptocurrencies can be sent to friends and family far away by using just a mobile phone. So if you wanted to pay your friend for something, you could do it simply by sending the money via your mobile device.
Cryptocurrencies are built on a system called the Blockchain. The Blockchain is like a ledger, or accounting book which we record our transactions into, and this ledger is distributed among the community and is open for everybody to see at any time. That means that the entire community that uses a particular cryptocurrency is able to see every transaction which is made with that cryptocurrency on the distributed ledger (Blockchain). Each transaction will only be allowed to be completed if the members of the community verify that you are allowed to carry out the transaction. This verification process is carried out using mathematical algorithms which computing power solves.
The people who put their computers to work are called miners, just like gold miners would use their tools to get the gold out of rocks, Bitcoin miners use their computers to get their reward out of the blockchain. They are rewarded for their work in verifying the blockchain transactions for the community which uses the Cryptocurrency. These blockchain features allow instant transactions without the need for using a bank. This in effect means that we don’t need to pay bank charges for the banks to complete the transactions. It also means that people cannot carry out fraudulent transactions because all transactions must be verified by the majority of the miners on the blockchain. There is lots to learn about Blockchain technology but I think this is enough information to give you a basic idea about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology for the comprehension of this article.
Enter LYKKE
Now that we have a basic understanding about cryptocurrency, let’s get back to SolarCoin, the reason I am writing this article today. In order to earn SolarCoins(SLR), you need to send proof of your solar production to the SolarCoin Foundation. This foundation will issue you SLR, based on mathematical calculations, directly into your digital wallet. I liked the idea of earning SLR’s but a couple of questions kept on arising. What could we do with these digital coins? Where could we spend these digital coins?
That was at about the same time I learned about an amazing company based in Switzerland, which facilitates cryptocurrency transactions, among other things. The company is called LYKKE which is a Scandinavian word that means ‘happiness and good fortune’.
Lykke is an online platform which gives people the ability to buy and sell cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, SolarCoin, Ethereum etc) and fiat currencies ( US dollar, SwissFranc, Euro, etc) in one place.
This means that after I earn SLR from the sun, I will be able to sell my SLR for currencies which are accepted in a marketplace that I wish to trade in.
LYKKE is a young company that aims to create a new financial platform, which makes it easy for people to trade cryptocurrencies and foreign exchange from their mobile devices with almost zero costs. They want to create a single platform for professional traders as well as people like us, looking to learn and invest.
Lykke also offers services such as an accelerator and an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) platform which basically allows you and I to create a currency of our own. In order to do that, you would submit your idea to the LYKKE team about how you intend to create value by implementing a coin. The LYKKE team will then get their best people to understand your idea, and their programmers will program instructions into a type of coin called a ‘colored coin’. These coins have the ability to be programmed with instructions just like a paper contract. Once the instructions have been programmed into the coin, the coin can be assigned with a name and could start being traded on the exchange. This is how the SolarCoin foundation was able to do it.
In my experience, LYKKE has been the best platform to trade on. They have a highly experienced team with the founder(Richard Olsen) having over forty years of foreign exchange trading experience through one of his well know companies ‘OANDA’. I have experienced exceptional customer service as the LYKKE team always answers my emails and queries.
LYKKE has a Blockchain explorer where we can view every transaction on the Blockchain. It’s probably important to mention that although every transaction can be seen on the blockchain, the transaction as well as the participants in the transaction are only seen as a sequence of numbers and letters. The name of the sender will not be displayed and neither will the contents of the transaction. Each digital wallet has its own unique address.
LYKKE wants to make great things happen and they believe that great things can be achieved through collaboration, which is why they have created a platform for the LYKKE community to do just that. LYKKE STREAMS is where projects are posted for members of the LYKKE community to participate in for the chance to win a prize. This article is an example of one of the projects on LYKKE STREAMS. Each projects is different and requires a varying set of skills, from programming to media and communications. The last time I looked, I saw a prize of $4000 for a project on STREAMS. Go and have a look for yourself.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope I have explained enough of the basics of the Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Colored coins, LYKKE as well as their range of products and services, in order for you to now understand how it all works.
Toni Läderach